Conventional approaches to access customer satisfaction information generally use standard survey forms or questionnaires by mail or telephone. Survey results are then tabulated or summarized in order to evaluate the information. However, any project or initiative will generally have an overwhelming number of measurement options. Pursuing all of them results in data overload and frustration.
The compass viewpoint concept is a tool that can be used to help evaluate customer satisfaction and focus improvement efforts. This improvement process provides a framework for developing a balanced measurement profile for an initiative by focusing on a small set of measures. The concept consists of four points which display four main outcome measurement categories or areas of measurement. Key measures of the initiative are then selected by addressing what variables or subcategories might be considered under each of the points.
In the health care system, the four outcome measurement categories are clinical, functioning, satisfaction, and cost. Like a directional compass, the points correspond to key aspects of quality and performance for both patients and staff. Clinical includes measures of mortality and morbidity, such as signs, symptoms, treatment complications, diagnostic test results and laboratory results, and disease-specific measures. Functional consists of measures of physical function, mental health, social/role function, and other measures of health status, such as pain, vitality, and perceived well-being and health risk status. Satisfaction includes measures of satisfaction such as patient and family satisfaction with health care delivery processes, a patient's perceived health benefit from care received, and employee satisfaction with work environment. Cost consists of measures of direct medical costs (e.g., ambulatory care, inpatient services, and medications) and indirect social costs (e.g., days lost from work or normal routine, replacement worker costs, and caregiver costs). A detailed description of the compass viewpoint can be found in “Clinical Improvement Action Guide,” edited by Nelson, Batalden, and Ryer, 1998, which is incorporated herein by reference.
However, this improvement process has several limitations. In depth application of the compass viewpoint and evaluation of the information collected need several measurement methods. These methods include control charts indicating variations in trends over time, patient preferences, rating scales, benchmarking, cost analysis, and cross related measurements. In addition, evaluators of a survey assessment may be interested in detailed reasons behind an answer in a particular situation, such as when a participant is very dissatisfied with a service or product, while the same evaluator may not care why a survey participant was satisfied with a different service or product. Processing stated reasons and such measurement methods using standard techniques can be difficult, time-consuming, and costly. Thus, there is a need for a computer-implemented system and method based on the improvement process that allows for presenting collected survey information in a compass viewpoint framework.
It would also be advantageous to automate the analysis and presentation of the collected survey information to enable a user to more easily and efficiently review the collected information. Modern computer and networking technology provide potential solutions to these problems. Advances in database design, computer processing, and computer networking all provide means to improve the process of analyzing and evaluating survey information. Accordingly, an adaptable survey presentation procedure would be useful, one that indicates the depth of measurements on certain topics depending on the answers given to questions on that topic, and that utilizes computer technology to process calculations and verbal replies.